Hot as Sin

Peter’s offer sounded benevolent. Helpful, even. But to Sam’s suspicious ears it reeked of wanting to keep an eye on them.

Unfortunately, the sun had already set behind the trees. Even if they chose to leave the commune, they couldn’t get far in the dark. Besides, Dianna looked as exhausted as he’d ever seen her.

At Dianna’s questioning glance, he said, “Fine. We’ll stay.”

“I wish I could help you more,” Peter said as he walked them to the door.

Almost across the threshold, Dianna paused. “Do you have a phone?”

“Just one, here in the house.”

“Could I use it?”

“Follow me.”

The phone was in a small room by the back door. “Take your time,” he said. “You can let yourself out the back.”

Dianna put her hand on Peter’s arm before she left the room. “I have one more request,” she said in a smooth voice that belied her distress. “I’d like to give the Farm’s telephone number to my producer. Just in case April calls, she’ll know where to find me.”

For a moment, Sam thought the man was going to refuse her request and he was preparing himself to “convince” him when Peter gave her the number.

Dianna picked up the old-fashioned receiver and dialed. “Ellen? It’s Dianna. Is there any word from April?”

Sam watched as her face fell, just as it had when they’d talked to the girl outside the commune’s gates and learned that April was, indeed, still missing. Quickly giving her friend the commune’s telephone number, she disconnected, then dialed another number and typed in what looked like a voice mail access code.

Standing off to the side, Sam felt superfluous yet again. Sure, she’d needed him on the river and the rock. But she’d barely needed him since. Of course he was proud of her for being so strong, for asking the hard questions. And yet, it only confirmed that he had no real place in her life.

But when she hung up the phone and looked at him with tears in her eyes, saying “She hasn’t left any messages on either of my phones,” he finally realized another reason he was here: to pull Dianna into his arms and hold her when all hope seemed lost.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

GOING SHACK to shack, they talked with men, women, even teenagers. But no one knew where April was. Apart from the girl who’d stopped them at the chain-link fence earlier that day, the commune’s residents seemed truly sad to hear that April was missing.

“I wish there was something I could do to help,” said their final interviewee, an attractive woman in her early thirties with a drooling young baby on her lap. “April was always so good with Christy. I swear, sometimes it seemed like she was the only one who could get her to stop crying.”

April was good with babies? Dianna couldn’t help but wonder if they were talking about the same person.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen my sister interact with a child before,” Dianna told the woman, who smiled, revealing slightly crooked front teeth.

“Honestly, I think she was scared stiff the first time I dropped Christy into her lap.” Chuckling, she added, “But I’m sure you know what a quick learner she is.”

But Dianna didn’t know that at all. Again, she had to wonder if April really had been growing and changing in a positive way on the commune. Sure, the primitive living situations pushed all of Dianna’s buttons, but could it possibly be that roughing it in the woods was better for her sister than living in Dianna’s penthouse condo in San Francisco?

Just then, the baby started crying and reaching for Dianna.

The woman laughed again. “She must think you’re April. You two really do look a lot alike in so many ways.” Pressing her lips to the baby’s forehead, the mother cooed, “She’s not April, baby girl,” but it only made the baby cry harder.

The baby’s wails tugged at Dianna’s heartstrings and she held out her hands.

“Here. Let me try anyway.”

A moment later, she was cradling the chubby infant in her arms, amazed when the baby’s tears were immediately replaced with a gummy grin. Enthralled by her soft skin, her big brown eyes, and tiny little fingers, Dianna looked up to compliment the mother on her gorgeous child when she caught Sam’s unblinking gaze.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what he was thinking: This could have been them ten years ago, had everything gone differently.

Sensing her distress, the baby started crying again and her mother picked her up out of Dianna’s arms. “I know how exhausted you must be from your journey here today. Again, if there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know.”

Dianna compulsively cracked her knuckles as they headed out across the meadow to the spot in a circle of tall aspens where Peter had instructed them to set up their tent. Sam grabbed her hands and separated them for her.

“I’m sorry we didn’t find out more from her friends,” he said softly, still holding on to her fingers.

During the past couple of hours, she’d managed to hold it together, even though it seemed that they were even further from finding April than they’d been in the hospital. She’d desperately hoped that coming to the commune would provide them with answers, or at least clues. Instead, it had been a total bust.

The only thing she knew for sure was that she wouldn’t be able to keep it together if he kept being so sympathetic.

She needed to get away from him.

“I need some privacy,” she said as she pulled her hands out of his grasp. “Please.”

Then she was tearing through the trees, stumbling over roots and rocks, her tears quickly morphing into sobs.

———

Sam understood why she wanted to be alone. They were similar that way, neither of them wanting to look weak in front of an audience. Instead, they both held everything they were feeling inside. When he realized she was sitting on a rock with her head on her knees, curled up into a ball, crying her eyes out, a pride of cougars couldn’t have held him back.

Her head shot up when she heard his footsteps crunch through the dry leaves. She brushed the back of her hands across her eyes.

“Go away.”

He knew why she was lashing out at him, knew that she was terribly worried, but he also knew she needed a loving friend more than she needed space. So he ignored her request and moved beside her on the rock. She was shivering and he didn’t hesitate to put his arms around her.